Lights Will Guide You Home
by CyMike
Summary: Follow a fourteen-year-old boy named Tolly as he leaves his abusive home behind in search of a new one on an adventure in the Hokkaido region in the world of Pokémon. Along the way, he'll meet two organizations, one trying to separate humans and Pokémon, and the other hunting Pokémon. A choice will have to be made. But it also seems Tolly isn't who he thinks he is... Who is he?
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This story takes place in an alternate world to the Pokemon world that everyone is accustomed to. (AU) Please, enjoy!**

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><p>Lights Will Guide You Home<p>

Chapter 1

If there was one thing Tolly would have never expected that morning, it was waking up to the smell of rotted meat with just a hint of the cheapest perfume the world had to offer. The stench was so overwhelming that his eyes were already watering profusely with irritation and his nose crinkled like a ball of paper being crushed underneath a foot which was accompanied by a burning sensation that felt as powerful as a Houndoom's Flamethrower.

But still, he knew if he stayed in bed, allowing himself to be paralyzed by the smell, it would only get worse. He also knew he couldn't be late for an appointment he made. Taking a handful of clothes he had picked out to wear that day,Tolly quickly rolled out of bed and ran down the hallway and passed an empty room into the bathroom, locking the door behind him, switching the fan on, and spraying down the entire room with pineapple scented air freshener. He hated pineapples, but it was better than the alternative.

As his golden blonde hair slicked back in the shower, he laboriously bathed himself with nearly every bottle of soap he could find. Still, the putrid smell pierced through the shield of pineapple and barrier of lavish shower soaps. Considering that the incident only happened last night, Tolly was baffled by how fast the odor presented itself and how far it spread through their shack of a home. But deep down he knew that what took place was justified. It was just time to reap the consequences of what he and his brother had sown.

Quickly recalling that his older brother, Ethan, had taken part in what happened last night, Tolly quickly exited the shower, sloppily dried himself off, and reached for his clothes. He slipped on a gray t-shirt and royal blue pull-over hoodie with the phrase "Let's Get Weird" in colorful letters on the front, his boxers, black shorts, and a pair of royal blue and white sneakers.

Tolly raced into his brother's room, the empty room he walked by to get to the bathroom. His fears were confirmed. Not a single soul that promised the two would leave together this morning was present in the room. Just scattered clothes, an unmade bed, and Tolly's broken heart.

It may have taken around two hours, but a very winded Tolly finally managed to arrive at the train station. "Hello, welcome to the Heath Train Station!" a very lovely male attendant said, but the boy had no time for such a thing as formalities and completely blew past him. He plunged bravely into the sea of business tycoons and common, everyday people. Measuring up at barely five feet and one inch, his small, scrawny stature allowed himself to easily maneuver between legs and through tight gaps made by people, which was the first time he had ever thanked his parents for not feeding him enough as a small child.

His heart began to pound as every second not seeing his brother meant he was one second closer to getting on some Arceus forsaken train never to be seen again. He cursed Ethan under his breath for not abiding by their promise of seeing each other off that morning, but he also cursed himself for in his rush to find him, he completely ignored the one person that could have helped him- the male attendant.

As the minutes continued to pass faster than he had ever felt time pass, his heart began to sink and the crippling anxiety started to set in. He could feel his airways constricting as his pulse gradually grew faster and faster to the point where he probably should have been having a heart attack. Next came the horrible light headed feeling that made him dizzy and distorted reality around him as he staggered into very not-understanding strangers that probably thought he was coked out of his skull. The crowd around him began to turn into dust as the final stage of his anxiety began to set in- hallucination. He was just left with nothing but what felt like dry, arid sand from a desert. Although he consciously knew he was in the train station on a concrete floor, his body convinced him otherwise as his throat felt the sharp, dry pain of daggers stabbing it with thirst. Many people had simply ignored Tolly, who was on the ground shivering. It was not the fact that no one cared, but people high on drugs was quite common for the area. The only thing they could think about was their scheduled train departures and what they were going to eat later that night.

A friendly hand placed itself on Tolly's shoulder and all together, he felt his anxiety leave him. He regained the ability to breathe first, next came the removal of daggers from his throat, then the empty desert was replaced with a full train station, and finally his brother's discontented face staring him in the eyes.

"Ethan!" Tolly screamed happily as his arms death-gripped his brother in a hug.

Ethan simply groaned and wrapped his arms around his little brother, allowing him to melt in the hug as he always did. "What in the Distortion World are you doing here?" he asked, pulling away from him.

Tolly quickly felt his shortness of breath coming back the instant his brother let go of him and began to cling to him like a lost puppy. "You jerk! You said we would see each other off this morning. How could you just break our promise like that?" he tightened his little fist and slammed it into the older boy's chest with tears streaming down his face. "The house smelled horrible and I had to wake up alone to it!"

"Wait, the smell started to spread already? Arceus Above, that's horrible. I guess we really mucked things up." Ethan let out a sad sigh and knew that wasn't what his little brother wanted to hear. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you behind. It's just..." he paused for a few seconds and averted his from Tolly's, which were already welling up with enough tears to supply water balloons to a little kid's party. "You know how I hate goodbyes."

"_You_ hate good-byes? Look at me, I'm a wreck over here. I think it's safe to say that if you hate them, then I can't even handle them." Tolly giggled slightly, trying to cheer himself up. "I'm just really gonna miss you. Do you _really_ have to go to this stupid Freedomist group home or whatever?"

Ethan groaned again and gave his little brother the slightly annoyed look. "You know how I feel about Pokémon and people being together."

"I think it's stupid you think Pokémon and humans shouldn't live together." Tolly folded his arms.

"Yeah?" Ethan smirked. "Well I think it's completely absurd you even allow people to be Pokémon Trainers and Coordinators. That's like slavery to the Pokémon." He saw that Tolly was also growing slightly annoyed and stopped himself before he went on his usual minute long rant about how people and Pokémon coexisting is wrong. "Hey, c'mon, let's not let our last conversation for a while be this age old argument between us."

Tolly's face immediately lit up like lights on a Christmas tree. "'For a while?' You mean we're gonna see each other again?"

"Of course we will. We've got opposing views, you're going on to be a Pokémon Trainer, and I'm joining a religious movement to separate humans and Pokémon. That and the Hokkaido Region isn't exactly the biggest region in the world. You bet your butt we're gonna meet again." Ethan laughed, hugging his little brother as tightly as possible. "You be good, OK? I'm serious. Don't go wandering off into trouble like you did when you were seven." his voice began to crack slightly as tears rolled down his cheeks. "I remember when you had your accident... I was so scared when you walked away from the car wreck. And then I was terrified when I looked in your eyes and you looked back at me like I was some stranger... But look at you, you're all grown up now. You're gonna do great things."

Tolly scoffed and smirked through his tears. "I just broke down in a train station because you were leaving and apparently I'm all grown up? Alright." he chuckled.

Ethan looked back to see passengers boarding a nearby train and let out one last saddened sigh. "Well..." he stopped, not wanting to say that he had to leave.

Tolly saw his brother's mouth unable to form any words and he smiled slightly, hugging his brother for a last time and backing away slowly. "I'll see you around, Ethan."

Ethan took a deep breath and mouthed "Thank you" to his little brother for not making him say anything, although he probably should have. "Remember what I told you, right? About the stars?"

Tolly nodded his head as Ethan began to disappear into the dense crowd of people boarding trains. "I'll always remember! You said 'Let the lights guide you home!' I'll let them guide me!" As Ethan was nearly out of sight, tears formed in Tolly's eyes again as he screamed "I love you, Ethan!"

But no response was heard from Ethan as the crowd thickened with people and the commotion began to grow louder. Tolly sniffled at not being able to hear his brother say anything, but he knew he said it.

"I love you too, Jason!" Ethan's voice called out.

Tolly smiled as his heart began to warm and rise from the pit of his stomach. The two of them had chose to go by different names on their adventures, although none of them had given each other their fake names. To go by the name 'Tolly' felt right for Jason, like a missing piece of the fragmented puzzle that was his horrible life. Things finally felt as if they made sense to him. Now he could be who he felt he was destined to be: Tolly Anderson, a world renowned adventurer that would make the world a better place.

But first he had to stop crying in the middle of the train station.


	2. Chapter 2

Lights Will Guide You Home

Chapter 2

If it wasn't waking up to the horrible stench that morning or his brother blatantly breaking their promise to one another that annoyed him the most, it was the mundane walking through Heath Village in the dead of night to get to Professor Teak's Laboratory. It was a small, decent place that was decorated with beautiful red and pink flowers. They had leaves that looked as sharp as needles, but soft and delicate to the touch. In the morning, it was a wonderful place with delightful people on the streets. Almost all the time if you at least acknowledged their existence, they would smile and acknowledge you back. From the marketplace to the village square, Heath Village was a nice place to live. If you only go out during the day...

At night, the village took a startling turn. The winds usually howled like wild Mightyena, but that wasn't the bad part. What made Heath Village a nightmare at night were the shady people that roamed the streets. Nearly everyone that was out in the dark of night had no business being out. If you happened to rob one of them, there would be a 99% chance of finding something illegal on them like drugs or a stolen Pokémon. If a group of them were ever encountered, generally the idea is to keep your head down, but act like you owned the street you were walking on, which seemed to be an impossible feat.

Tolly walked down the street with his hands in his pockets and his hood pulled over his head to shield himself from the blistering winds. The night grew darker and the number of shifty people taking their places on the street rose. He could feel his heartbeat pounding in his head as he walked along quietly, trying not to show his fear. This was his first time walking the streets of the village at all, much less at night. As a child, especially after his accident, he was never let out of the house in fear of him wandering off. Their house was located on the outskirts of the village in an open field, but even then he was restricted in where he could go. As he aged, the limitations did not lift.

Every now and then, shrewd eyes would try to steal glances of the small boy, but because of how noticeably restless he was, he usually caught almost every single one. "It isn't too far now..." he thought. Just a few more miles." His legs were on fire. He had been walking pretty much the entire day since he left the train station.

Just as the temperature dropped low enough for Tolly to see his breath, he remembered a little trick his brother taught him if he ever had to walk out on the streets at night. "_In order to not be a target, you can't look like some good-two-shoes. In warm weather, all you can really do is keep your hood up, hands in your pockets, and walk like you don't have a purpose in life. But if it's cold enough and you can see your breath, you can use your fingers and pretend you're smoking a cigarette. Something about someone smoking makes them less likely to be messed with."_

Tolly brought two fingers up to his mouth and breathed out warm air to give off the appearance of a cigarette in his hands. He noticed that the quick sneak peeks and glances at him happened less and less until no one paid him any mind.

However, a few more feet down the road, he saw a group of people huddled underneath a street light across the street. They didn't seem _too_ intimidating, but at 5'1 weighing in at 110 pounds, a lot of people can look intimidating. Tolly did what his brother taught him and smoked his fake cigarette as he _leisurely_ walked past the group of shady individuals. His hoodie showed an increase in his breathing speed as it expanded and retracted with his shoulders.

"Hey," one of the hoodlums called out to him. He pretended like he didn't hear and kept walking, a little more hastily than before, which worked until the man called again. "Hey!"

Tolly stopped dead in his tracks, trying to keep up his appearance with smoking his fake cigarette and slowly looked over at the men. His hood thankfully covered his anxious looking eyes so they were unable to see his fear.

"You got another smoke I can bum off ya, little man?"

With a gulp, Tolly replied "No, this is one of those e-cigs. Sorry." He prayed to Arceus that they wouldn't take notice of the fact that there was literally nothing in his hand.

"Ah, s'cool." And with that, the men went back to their business of hustling and bustling amongst one another.

Tolly practically high-tailed it out of there with a walk that clearly showed he had purpose- to get the _HELL_ out of there. His heart was pounding with excitement for the fact that the "hood-Rattata" as they called hood-rats in that world were actually stupid enough to fall for the trick. He then started giggling to himself about how if they had just looked closely to see nothing was in his hand, he would have been shaken down for lying. However, thinking about getting beaten down to a pulp only furthered his anxiety and brought up the shortness of breath. He had to stop and sit down on the edge of the sidewalk, rocking back and forth to try and calm himself. After a few minutes, he felt his body simmer down and he was able to keep walking.

Even though it took a long walk through the village, lying about smoking, and fending off an anxiety attack, Tolly had finally reached his destination: Professor Teak's Laboratory. It was a large, white, dome-shaped building with a vast, open field behind it stretching as far as the eye could see in the day. At night it just appeared to be one long stretch of endless darkness. To get to the laboratory, he had to take a small cobblestone trail off the main road and through a small grove of trees and bushes. Once arriving, he stepped up on the porch to the front door and pushed the small button he assumed was the door bell.

He waited. And waited. And waited some more. But there was no answer, which Tolly thought strange, so he rang the doorbell again. Again, he was left waiting and nothing happened. "This is weird..." he said to himself as he began to repeatedly jab the button as if it were the "A" button on a 3DS and he just wanted to get past the absurdly long dialogue.

Finally, a tall, slim man dressed in sky blue pajamas and a nightcap answered the door with a very miffed but half asleep look on his face. "What in the world do you want?! It's three-o'clock in the morning!"

It then dawned on Tolly that the reason why no one answered the door for five minutes was because it was the middle of the night, usually the time people are deep within their deep NREM sleep and enjoying it. At a complete loss of words for the fact that he didn't consider coming over late at night wasn't the best idea, he did the only thing he could do when he was nervous, which was to start having an anxiety attack. First came the shortness of breath which was much more aggressive this time because he knew he messed up big time in making a first impression to Professor Teak. Then came the horrid light-headed feeling that brought him to his knees. By the time his reality grew distorted and shifted from the porch of the laboratory to a white void where the only thing was him curled up in the fetal position and the completely unreal gigantic figure of the Professor looming over him like a human getting ready to pulverize a small insect with his size 11 shoes, he'd already passed out.

This was not how Tolly pictured his first meeting with the Professor would go.


End file.
